Saturday, May 7, 2011

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Jason Yoon was a part of Dwight-Englewood's second doubles team that provided the winning point in the Bulldogs' 3-2 win over Pascack Hills in a battle of unbeaten teams.

ENGLEWOOD – Being tested is something both Dwight-Englewood and Pascack Hills rarely experience on the tennis court. As two of North Jersey’s top three teams, both coaches have to schedule as many independent matches as they possibly can to get their respective teams prepared for potential runs at county and state championships. With the county tournament just a week away, the two top-flight took to the court against each other in a gripping battle that came down to a pair of three-set matches at both doubles slots to decide a winner.

Dwight-Englewood’s Jason Yoon and David Shutov broke in the final game to earn a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory over Pascack Hills’ Grant Miller and Josh Rosen at second doubles to leave Dwight-Englewood as North Jersey’s only undefeated team with a 3-2 victory on Friday over the Cowboys.

“I’m really proud of the way we played today and we showed a lot of heart when we needed it,” said Dwight-Englewood’s first-singles player Max Sacks. “We figured every match was going to be tough and any one of them could have gone right down to the wire.”

It looked early on like Sacks would have his hands full with Pascack Hills’ hard-serving junior Michael Solimano. But Sacks started returning the booming serves better as the match wore on and eventually broke in taking the first set. It was much of the same in the second set as Sacks matched Solimano’s punishing groundstrokes with his customary steady play on his way to a mildly surprising 6-4, 6-4 victory.

Pascack Hills' Jason Prezant won 7 of the match’s final 8 games for a 6-4, 6-1 victory at second singles.

“I knew I had to find a way to return his serve or I would have lost,” added Sacks. “I figured if I kept the ball in play and didn’t give away any easy points that I’d win. (Solimano) has such a huge serve and he can really take over a match when he gets going. I had to limit his aces and easy points and just make him work for everything.”

Pascack Hills got its two points from Jason Prezant and Dan Rosen at second and third singles, respectively. Prezant, a junior southpaw, pulled away by winning seven of the match’s final eight games for a 6-4, 6-1 victory. Rosen came up with the best point of the match as he saved five consecutive overhead smashes (a la Jimmy Connors in the 1991 U.S. Open) on his way to winning a crucial point late in the first set en route to a 6-2, 6-2 triumph.

That meant Dwight-Englewood needed to sweep both doubles matches to pull out a victory, which is a tall order being the Bulldogs are still trying to find their doubles chemistry on the fly.

“This is a match that we figured could be (3-2) either way, so we were prepared for it,” said Dwight-Englewood head coach Joe Iwanski. “We wanted to be tested and especially at doubles. This is where you build character and find out what your team is made of under pressure circumstances. Win or lose, matches like this either way make your team stronger.”

After dropping a first-set tiebreak, Jake Eagan and Luke Sherman roared back to take the second set and led 5-1 in the third before holding off a late rally for a 6-7 (2-7), 6-2, 6-4 victory over Pascack Hills’ Hunter Anderson and Jake Steiner.

That left the match’s outcome resting on a third set at second doubles. While relatively inexperienced as a whole, three of the four players on the court had been in that situation before. Pascack Hills’ Miller and Rosen won a third set 7-5 in the deciding match against Ramapo and Yoon was part of a third-set clincher in an early-season Bulldog win over Bergen Tech.

Luke Sherman was a part of the winning first doubles team for Dwight.

“We needed to play it like it was any other match,” said Yoon. “Keep the ball deep, keep our unforced errors down, and just leave it all out on the court.”

With the crowd in attendance solely focused on the only remaining match, both tandems rose to the occasion and were on their games in the third set. It was a matter of who would blink first and a pair of unforced errors from the Cowboys opened the door for Yoon and Shutov. Both came up with big shots down the stretch for a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 victory that allowed Dwight-Englewood to run its record to 15-0.

“I think (Miller and Rosen) were more aggressive than we were in the second set, and we had to turn that around and be more aggressive in the third,” said Shutov. “I’m starting to feel more comfortable at the net. I was trying to do too much in the second set. We just focused on getting keeping it simple and getting it over the net in the third set and it worked out well for us.”

It is possible that at a rematch of sorts could occur at next week’s Bergen County Groups 1-2 championships. These two teams could battle in the final of all five flights. Whether that happens or not, they will be the heavy favorites to finish 1-2 with a county championship on the line; a goal each team has set for a goal from day one.

“We definitely want to be champs and we know we have to go through Dwight-Englewood if we want to win it,” said Pascack Hills’ head coach Eric Ganz. “I thought we fought hard and we just lost (6-4) in the third set of both doubles matches to a very good team. It’s a tough loss, but we’ll learn from it. It will definitely be a good motivational tool with the county tournament coming up and hopefully we’ll get another shot them with a different result next time around."

FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.